Erica Redahan Weiherer made some very interesting comments in her recent letter to the editor. I quote, “Instead of relying on guns with a 10 plus capacity magazine, why not promote responsible gun ownership with safety raining and improved marksmanship, in other words quality (accurate shooting, make most out of each bullet) vs. quantity...my emphasis being on disabling the attacker(s), not killing them.” Such grand and noble thoughts.

I will use Erica’s own hypothetical home invasion scenario with a few of my own additions. Erica will have between 9 and 15 seconds to react. This timeframe is based on the distance from my back door or my front door to where I usually sit in my kitchen and the intruder would by then be sitting in my lap or beating on my head.

Someone enters your house unannounced without wiping his feet or ringing your doorbell. It is a single person whom you cannot readily identify wearing a hooded sweatshirt. In his/her right hand could be one of the following - a pistol, some other weapon, a hoagie sandwich. Your survival clock has already used four seconds.

You determine this could be a threat to your well being and you take appropriate action. Selecting from one of the weapons normally found in most American households you realize the shotgun and the hunting rifles are safely locked in the gun safe in the cellar. Your .22 caliber target pistol, with micro sights for accurate shooting, is stored in your kitchen cabinet. Handy and dandy. The problem is it has a gun lock on it as recommended by the anti-gun lobby for safety reasons. Makes sense to them.

Shift the scene. Your target pistol is available, loaded and ready to fire. Remember, all this time your survival clock is running and the intruder is getting closer and closer. He has refused to leave so you shoot the pistol out of his hand. That puts you in a class with those outstanding sharpshooters as Hopalong Cassidy, the Lone Ranger and Gene Autry in the films of yesteryear and early television. Law enforcement trains to shoot at large mass body center.

By this time the intruder is standing eyeball to eyeball with you. If you are lucky enough to get off a single shot, I hope for your peace of mind you only wound him. In my case I can stomach the concept of shooting first and asking questions later as I would still be alive.

Unfortunately, if you look at your survival clock, you will see you overused your very narrow allocation of time. Should my house ever be invaded, I hope that I would be lucky enough to be drinking coffee with Representative Jim Gerlach.

And my question, Erica, is what does all this have to do with protecting our families from people who obtain guns illegally? It seems you have selected only that part of HR 452 that seems reasonable to you.